Eric Turkheimer

About

Eric Turkheimer is the Hugh Scott Hamilton Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on how interactions between genes and environments shape the development of human behavior. His lab studies various aspects of behavior, with particular interest in issues related to family life, including marriage, divorce, and parenting. Additionally, Turkheimer's work explores the development of human intelligence and personality, especially in understanding the processes that lead siblings to become different from each other over time. He also develops methods for richer and more individualized assessments of personality, controlling for the role of self-esteem when individuals describe their own personality.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Genetics
• Biology
• Evolutionary biology
• Ecology
• Geography
• Social psychology
• Demography
• Psychology

Selected publications

• Wrestling with Social and Behavioral Genomics: Risks, Potential Benefits, and Ethical Responsibility

  The Hastings Center Report · 2023 · 66 citations

  In this consensus report by a diverse group of academics who conduct and/or are concerned about social and behavioral genomics (SBG) research, the authors recount the often-ugly history of scientific attempts to understand the genetic contributions to human behaviors and social outcomes. They then describe what the current science-including genomewide association studies and polygenic indexes-can and cannot tell us, as well as its risks and potential benefits. They conclude with a discussion of…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Three legs of the missing heritability problem

  Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A · 2022-05-06 · 54 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Genetic and environmental influences on human height from infancy through adulthood at different levels of parental education

  Scientific Reports · 2020 · 42 citations

  Genetic factors explain a major proportion of human height variation, but differences in mean stature have also been found between socio-economic categories suggesting a possible effect of environment. By utilizing a classical twin design which allows decomposing the variation of height into genetic and environmental components, we tested the hypothesis that environmental variation in height is greater in offspring of lower educated parents. Twin data from 29 cohorts including 65,978 complete tw…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Understanding the Nature‒Nurture Debate

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2024-11-07 · 9 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  There are arguably few areas of science more fiercely contested than the question of what makes us who we are. Are we products of our environments or our genes? Is nature the governing force behind our behaviour or is it nurture? While it is now widely agreed that it is a mixture of both, discussions continue as to which is the dominant influence. This unique volume presents a clear explanation of heritability, the ongoing nature versus nurture debate and the evidence that is currently available…

  PublisherDOI

• How to Diagnose Abhorrent Science

  The Hastings Center Report · 2024-11-01 · 8 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  What makes certain scientific research controversial? And when does scientific research go beyond being merely controversial to be something far worse? We propose a diagnostic framework for distinguishing between scientific research that is merely controversial and that which is abhorrent. Our framework places research projects along two axes of a value-harm map. Most research, fortunately, is both valuable and harmless. However, research may be controversial if it is either valuable but harmful…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R03MH044065

  NIH · $35k · 1989

• NIH Grant R03AG048850

  NIH · $312k · 2017

• NIH Grant R01HD053550

  NIH · $928k · 2011

Frequent coauthors

• Glen E. Duncan

  Washington State University Spokane

  60 shared

• Siny Tsang

  University of Virginia

  49 shared

• Ally R. Avery

  Washington State University Spokane

  46 shared

• Nathaniel F. Watson

  University of Washington

  43 shared

• Thomas F. Oltmanns

  Washington University in St. Louis

  40 shared

• Brian M. D’Onofrio

  Indiana University Bloomington

  37 shared

• Robert E. Emery

  University of Virginia

  32 shared

• Christopher R. Beam

  University of Southern California

  30 shared

Labs

• Turkheimer LabPI

Similar researchers at University of Virginia

• Joseph P. Allenh-67
• Tobias Grossmannh-59
• Paul Perrinh-56